This application claims the priority of German patent document 199 15 083.4, filed Apr. 1, 1999, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The present invention relates to a method for producing fibre-reinforced plastic components comprising not completely unwindable geometries, in particular for the production of integrally reinforced planking fields.
It is known to produce components of this type from semi-finished materials in a prepreg technique (i.e., the large area skin field of a planking field and the stiffening profiles for integral reinforcement). Due to the non-unwindable geometries of the stiffening profiles, the stiffening profiles need to be laminated manually, in contrast to the automatic laying of the skin field, thus accounting for a large part of the entire production costs for producing integrally reinforced planking fields.
A further known process is the resin film infusion (RFI) process. In this process, pre-hardened resin film is applied to dry tissue in a curing device and the curing device thus loaded and evacuated is subjected to suitable temperature and pressure treatment in an autoclave to cure the fibre-reinforced plastic component. The known RFI process is limited to resin infusion and curing of dry tissue parts. No application of the RFI process to prepreg semi-finished materials is known.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a cost effective method for producing fibre-reinforced components comprising not completely unwindable geometries.
In the method according to the present invention, the conventional prepreg production is advantageously combined with a resin film infusion method. The unwindable part of the plastic component (e.g., the large area skin field of a planking field) is prefabricated in conventional design as a prepreg semi-finished material. The non-unwindable stiffening profile, which is applied to the skin field for integral stiffening, is prefabricated as a textile semi-finished material. A resin film is applied to the non-unwindable stiffening profile before it is joined to the prepreg semi-finished material in a curing device comprising a flexible vacuum hood. For joining the plastic component, the loaded and evacuated curing device is subjected to temperature and pressure treatment in an autoclave.
When applying the method according to the present invention, the very costly process of manual laying and cutting out of a prefabricated stiffening profile made in the usual prepreg design is not required. The textile semi-finished materials used according to the present invention can largely be produced in an automated process and thus can be produced economically.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.